


Feast and Famine

by DeCarabas



Series: Fugitives Together [14]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Act 2, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-05 22:56:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6726721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeCarabas/pseuds/DeCarabas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being part spirit has changed Anders’ perspective in a variety of ways, and he’s never been more grateful to be part of the physical world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Feast and Famine

There’s always a heavy cauldron simmering over a fire just outside the clinic these days, and Anders isn’t sure whose it was originally, but it seems to be the clinic’s now. And some days there’s meat, and some days there’s bread to mop up the broth, and some days he’ll wake up from napping on the cot in the back and find one of Evelina’s kids sitting beside him, peeling potatoes.

And sometimes he knows the ingredients for the night’s meal must have been simply taken rather than bought or begged for, but there’s no twinge of conscience, not from either part of him. Though he remembers tying a rope to his dagger to remind Sigrun that stealing is wrong, and he thinks of trying something like that again, but it hadn’t exactly worked on Sigrun.

The lantern above the door is out, he’s officially taking a break, and the woman who puts a bowl into his hand reminds him of Sigrun, a bit. A very tall Sigrun. Maybe it’s just the tattoos.

Steam rises from the bowl, swirls around the rim, and a part of his mind is fascinated by the complex patterns it traces in the air.

The wisps at the tower used to do that, the ones he’d summoned as an apprentice; fixating on the most absurd things. The smoke rising from a blown-out candle. A bit of the Chant that they’d echo over and over again, not capable of forming words but mimicking the rhythm of it in chiming tones, repeating it for hours on end if he let them, driving the templars to distraction. Sometimes the wisps would swarm around a frayed hem, of all things, dancing around his feet.

It was the texture, he knows that now; the blurred approximations of the Fade paling in comparison to intricate fibers and vivid colors interlocking and overlaying each other and wearing down at the edges, and that disruption in the pattern just adds to the fascination, the mortal world serving up a feast for the senses at every turn.

 _The mortal world_. He’s uncomfortable with how often that phrase comes to his mind.

But he eats more slowly than he used to, before Justice; takes his time over every spoonful even on the days when there’s no meat for the pot and no bread to mop it up, just a bit of broth and the steam whispering over the surface, and he finds himself wanting to memorize every detail. As if it might vanish except for his focus holding it in place, like a dream.

* * *

He wants to memorize Hawke the same way.

His first morning in the estate, surrounded by silk sheets and heavy curtains so red he could get lost in the color, Orana carries up breakfast on a tray for them, three plates, and she looks briefly confused when she enters the room, recovers quickly. And he’s confused too, for a moment. But three plates, three voices, and it startles a laugh out of him. He hadn’t thought the walls were that thin.

Hawke insists she leaves the third plate when she starts to take it away. Voice soft against Anders’ ear, he says he wants to be sure Justice feels welcome here too.

And he does, he does, they do, and afterward he breathes in the scent of oranges on Hawke’s fingertips and he chases the taste of sugar and tea at the corner of Hawke’s lips, and he’s always had a taste for sweets. Even before Justice. That’s all him.

The distinction feels important right now.

Because he feels like one of those wisps, content to stay here like this, learning Hawke with tongue and fingertip, dragging over old scar tissue and humming with the whisper-faint pulse of magic under Hawke’s skin. And part of him has never been more fascinated by the intricate detail of the physical world, yet never felt more like a foreigner here. Half convinced this will all vanish if he looks away.

Except he hears something like that same awe in Hawke’s voice. And Hawke murmurs nonsense about the spattering of freckles behind Anders’ knees, pressing his lips to each one as if it’s a revelation.


End file.
